SEASON: Newleaf.
DAY: Twenty-six.
TIME OF DAY: Dawn is approaching.
HOURS UNTIL DREAM: Zero.
CURRENT LOCATION: Shadowclan camp, medicine cat's den.
His dream carried him to Starclan's fields with a shiver, like something wet was sliding up his spine. This uncomfortable feeling drew Clearpaw to open his eyes, frosted blue staring out into the clearing that was placed before him. Truly, it looked beautiful in the perpetual moonlight that rained down, shattered by the twist and turn on the forever summer leaves. However, he had not been drawn down here to admire the landscaping, they called him for a real reason.
"Starclan…?" he called out hesitantly, whispery young voice breaking the soothing silence.
"Clearpaw!" a voice cheerfully responded, a figure bounded out from the pine trees that were the clearing Starclan chose for him. "Clearpaw, it has been too long. Really, how have you been?"
The young tom's eyes adjusted to the soft illumination immediately as he turned his gaze to the right where the voice and body were appearing. From the darkness a young she-cat had appeared, his dead older sister who had never passed through apprenticeship. His mother had had a single litter before him, two she-kits in it. One of them, Whitepetal, was still alive, but the other, Snowpaw, was never going to make it to the place where her sister, or even Clearpaw was heading.
"Snowpaw, you look well," he warmly responded, dipping his head with a twitching smile. "Have you some news to share with me?" He waited not for her answer when he immediately asked, "Did Breeze-eye make it up alright?"
There was a toying grin on his sister's face, her bright yellow eyes from their father sparking with that starlight that all Starclanner's owned. He never got tired of staring into one of their eyes, watching those diminutive stars blinking away in their gaze as they stared back at him. Did they regret dieing? Did they stare at him because they wanted to return to the life that he had once had? Was it the dullness in his gaze that they adored the most on him? The starless quality of his pelt? Sometimes their eyes seemed to burn holes in him, the regretful. He wished nothing like that on himself when he came to their ranks.
"Yes, Breeze-eye has been accepted into our ranks. It was only because Juniperfrost begged for her to be able to join us that she joined…" the dead she-cat spoke this line with hesitance, as though that had not exactly been the reason why she was up here. "Though… because Breeze-eye was always so valiant, Starclan had already made a special place for her." She admitted this with a crooked grin, she was clearly happy that the past deputy was allowed into Starclan.
"Weren't you friends with her when you two were apprentices? Whitepetal, too?" the medicine cat apprentice asked with a tilt of his head, inquiry accented by this curious motion. "You all grew up in the same time. What was she? One, two moons older than you?"
"One moon older. We were the best of friends, we still are. I never gave up on her, even if it was a decision as a whole to leave the Clans to kill themselves by the rest of Starclan. I'm sure that every member has someone that they can't let go of, though…"
"Wouldn't you pick Whitepetal to bless then, Snowpaw? Certainly your sister is more important than an old friend."
"…you would think… wouldn't you?"
At this queer remark, Snowpaw picked up the pace that the two were walking at. This jogging meant that they could not talk coherently, their breath rapidly escaping because of the sudden change. Clearpaw was obviously not made for physical activity, leaning hard forward to keep up at the pace which the she-cat thought was relatively slow. He could pace around for herbs, stick his nose in cracks to sniff out the hidden plants, but he simply could not do strenuous physical tasks—he considered jogging a strenuous activity.
So focused on getting his breath out in easy gasps, Clearpaw did not notice that they had separated from the pine forests of his home. Starclan had such vast landscapes that Clearpaw was never sure where they ended and where exactly they started, so the thinning of the already sparse coniferous forest to the wetlands of Riverclan was strange, when he finally noticed it. His eyes blinked a couple of times to completely take in the territory that he had never seen before.
Snowpaw had gotten ahead of him, her lithe white body traveling at a speed unknown to his paws. Was she trying to escape him? Did she plan on leaving him alone in this foreign land? Even in his time as a medicine cat apprentice in the living world he had not gone so far into Riverclan's reeds. There had never been the reason or the need. Besides, Juniperheart was very sure about not trespassing onto enemy territory.
Realizing that he could no longer see or hear Snowpaw, the tom croaked out a hoarse call, "Snowpaw? Where… where are you?"
His throat stuck for a moment, afraid of the unknown that he was currently facing. No one was beside him, his only guide running into the thickening reeds. How could she just leave him out here by himself? He had absolutely no sense of direction in the first place, and with the moon out, there was no telling which way was east or west. Did she expect him to stay here until he woke up? He was frightened half to death already, who knew what kind of panic he would be barreling about in in a couple of moments.
"P-please, Snowpaw. This isn't f-funny," he scrambled over his words, his own white paws touching the ground hesitantly as he pulled himself further into the unknown. "I… I can't do this by myself. I need your help. I need anyone's help. Please…"
Then came his falsetto scream when a form shot out from the bushes directly in front of him. Falling back in surprise, Clearpaw's eyes were wide as he landed on his tail. In front of him stood the deputy that had left their leader twenty-four hours before and had come back to camp dead. A threat, the other Clan had sent her beaten body back as. But now that image was erased clean, her frosted green eyes were sparkling with the soul that had entered the sky. Her dark patterned coat shimmered dimly. She was a new member of Starclan, she had truly been accepted into the skies.
Forgetting his earlier surprise, his fur settled onto his shoulders as he hopped up to greet her. Rubbing his white face against the side of hers in a familiar greeting was a pleasure, the hearing of her own soft purr was relaxing. She was safe.
From the other side appeared Snowpaw, revealing herself with a snorting chuckle at her younger brother's childish display of fear. Her bright dandelion eyes spoke jest as he sent his glares towards her. He approached her with a flick of his tail to her nose, a furrowed brow at the scare that she had put on him. She was still smaller than him, despite her wiser moons. He could still tackle her to the ground and win, no matter what. It was his intention to remind her of this when Breeze-eye intervened, hooking a tail around his neck and tugging him back.
"You scared the fur off my back! I was about to be stuck in a territory I didn't even know," Clearpaw insisted on continuing his fierce glare. Suddenly, though, his sister's eyes dulled.
"We don't have much time, Breeze-eye. We need to hurry," she abruptly turned serious, voice low and full of hidden meanings. "This is why I rushed here before it happened again."
"Oh, so this was what Longwhisker was talking about," Breeze-eye said insightfully, nodding her head gently at the white she-cat before turning to the same colored tom. "Clearpaw, there is something coming that we cannot stop ourselves, we as in Starclan. It comes from the territory that the long-ago generations walked, the one that the Great Journey carried us from."
Clearpaw's eyes grew wide, his whiskers twitched at the shock of the words that came from her mouth. Old territory? What threat?
"In the old skies they walk, they're coming, but they have been stalled by old barriers for a long time. Kept back by the forces of our mountain counterparts. They cannot… we need…."
Breeze-eye's words had become chopped, her lips moved where she continued to recite words, but they were lost to Clearpaw's ears. Every few seconds he could see dark shapes twisting at the edges of his vision, shadows moving closer to covering the entirety of his pupil.
"…discover… learn their traditions… work well with… Clans… depending…"
The darkness was about to close off his last peek of her, crawling like tiny insects covering a rotting corpse. He had caught her glimpses of phrases, but taken together they made little sense in his current state of mind. She was disappearing, Snowpaw was disappearing, Starclan was disappearing. The last visible thing he saw was one menacing sneer as they shadows came over, and sleep faded to wakefulness.
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TIME OF DAY: Mid-day.
HOURS UNTIL GATHERING: Thirty.
CURRENT LOCATION: Shadowclan territory, border between Shadowclan and Thunderclan.
"It was really weird, Juniperfrost, it was like something was interfering with Starclan," the concept brought a shiver to the spine of the young tom. Twice in one day he was getting the willies, first his transfer from reality to Starclan and now thinking about that thing that had happened when he was trying to listen to Breeze-eye. "It began really soon after she started telling me all the important stuff, too."
His mentor had brought him out of camp not to talk about the dream that he was currently engrossed in, but to gather herbs, and so far he had not even glanced at the surrounding grounds. He was intensely interested in what Juniperfrost thought of his odd coincidence, but she had yet to respond to him with anything but a curt nod. Did she know something that he didn't? And was she not willing to share with him that knowledge? She just kept sniffing about the ground for the supplies they needed, occasionally glancing up at the overcast sky. Nothing, not a word.
Was the weather really that much more interesting in the news that he had? Did she really not care?
"Juniperfrost! C'mon, this is serious. What if something bad is happening to Starclan? What if…" he trailed off, hoping that she would catch on, tell him something.
She turned on him, her different colored irises not blinking as they rested on his form. They were full of wisdom—and restraint. She was keeping something from him and he knew it, that being what was bothering him now. Not that she would not respond, for if she had no plausible answer, then what was the use of throwing back theories? But she knew, she just would not tell. Or did Starclan swear her to secrecy? Either way, as she turned back to her herbs after that stare, Clearpaw knew that something certainly was up.
"Did Breeze-eye make it to them?"
Snow paws scattered a couple of leaves at the sudden questioning of the Starclan situation, though indirect and possibly able to lead to other things, "Yes. She was the one that told me that cut off warning. I think she was warning me about the things that were invading my—"
"Oh? Really? You think?" her voice was hard, annoyed. "Do not think to hardly over it, small one. All will come clear at the Gathering tomorrow night."
With his mouth agape, Clearpaw turned on his mentor in surprise. Was she seriously saying that the Clans would go through with the Gathering? Under what pretense? Had Starclan visited the leaders in their dreams and instructed them to go?
"I will be the one advising Pinestar on going to the gathering, such as with the other medicine cats. It is not only you who have received words from the stars," her voice, cryptic as it always was, spoke of the secrets that only true medicine cats knew of. "Now, be worried with finding these herbs. If we do not, suffer we will from the next battle that occurs on our land, to our Clan mates."
Clearpaw's lips pursed at this suggestion, but this was all that he could do. If he questioned the older she-cat, she would not budge in her stubbornness. He knew of her strength from other days, she never told things straight, unless they were techniques for healing patients. Then she spoke precisely what was meant, detailing over little things. Everything else was vague, he had a hard time often trying to interpret her greetings.
Catching the scent of a group of juniper berries, the white tom's paws carried him to their resting place. On the way, his thoughts carried him across the dream that he had experienced the night before. Unlike other memories of dream, his Starclan ones often stuck with him for entire weeks. Anything else slipped away as soon as it had come. As he sifted through the dream, for clues, for something, he grabbed the juniper bears with his paws. Something… something…
"Oh! Juniperfrost! Do you know who Longwhisker is?"
"He used to be a Windclan warrior, but he died in the battle against the Tribe and sun-drown place cats. You are to young to remember him, he was well known in his time though," she commented this with a nod of her head, padding over to inspect the berries that he had picked. "Why do you question about him? Did they speak of him?"
"Snowpaw was speaking of rushing over here, and then Breeze-eye said 'oh, so this was what Longwhisker was talking about'. Do you think that more cats had the same dream as I did? Such as… Riverclan's only Windclan descendant, Rabbitfoot?" Clearpaw inquired, tilting his head in question of this. If more had this dream, then perhaps something was happening to the Clans as a whole.
Juniperfrost narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, her lips once more tightening to a line. It was obvious that she was not excited that he had made this connection. But, wouldn't this, in the end, help them figure out what Starclan had been talking about? Perhaps the others who had been approached caught different bits, the bits that he had not been able to hear. If they put them together, they would realize what exactly was happening!
"You will see at the Gathering," the she-cat repeated icily, turning on her heel. "Collect those berries and let us return to camp."
"Yes… Juniperfrost…" Clearpaw said, watching her depart. What was agitating her today?
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CURRENT LOCATION: Shadowclan camp.
Returning to the camp was in silence, and they parted ways immediately after putting the freshly found herbs in their respective piles. Newleaf was kind enough to bring them these herbs, but it had also brought various problems. Though he had not been alive for other springs, he knew that this was the first time that such problems had risen in the Clans.
All because of that single kit… and it wasn't even their problem! What did they even call it anyway? If anything, they should call it Problemkit…
"Clearpaw, you're back," a girlish called for his attention, he turned and saw his kithood friend Fawnpaw approaching him. "Is everything alright with Juniperfrost? I saw her approaching Pinestar's den with this creepy-serious look on her face." The light tabby blinked in confusion, the medicine cat apprentice didn't know what to tell her.
"I… don't know, really," he tried, his brows pressing together as he lied. "Maybe she just wanted to advise him on something, tell him something about new herbs?"
"You really can't lie, can you Clearpaw?" she cheerfully responded, pressing her nose to her cheek in her usual sisterly affection. "But, if you really don't want to tell me, I won't ask. Oh! Nightkit and Snowkit were asking about you, too. Come with me!"
Lashing her tail side to side, the young she-cat nudged her friend in the direction of the nursery. The two kits had turned five moons just recently, and now they were anxious as ever to retreat from their den. He knew that they desperately wanted to be apprentices as he had when he was a kitten, but he was not eager to become medicine cat as Fawnpaw was anxious to become a warrior. He could live forever as a 'paw, still unsure of the ability he would have as a medicine cat, the one and only medicine cat.
Fawnpaw gestured to him to stop for a moment, allowing her to crawl into the nursery. The bush which they had made into the queen's area was low hanging, not quite so easy for anyone to get into. Perhaps they were hoping that when another Clan would attack they would not notice the brush and move past, leaving the kits and queens to themselves.
"Oh, I'm sorry Toadleap!" the young she-cat squeaked, pushing back out of the nursery as the broad-shouldered warrior came out.
Dark coat rippling in the gloom of the Shadowclan camp—this smoggy feel never really left, but the cats of Shadowclan were born to it, and so used to it—a small smile on his lips, "It's fine, Fawnpaw. Remember to meet me near the lake later today, near the Thunderclan border."
"Ah, yes," she agreed, dipping her head in embarrassment as he departed.
Watching his back as he left for a second, the younger tom shook his head with an amused smile on his lips, "Still planning to snatch him away from his ever so loving mate, Fawnpaw?" A chuckle escaped at the same moment, and the young she-cat turned to him with a twitching scowl.
"He'll come to love me, you'll see," she said bluntly before returning to her struggle to call the kits out of their nursery.
Wondering if this slight obsession with his friend's mentor would ever really fade, Clearpaw sighed with that troubled smile on his lips. It seemed nice to think of such small matters compared to the haunting Starclan warning that he had not quite received. Which brought him back to his annoyance at Juniperfrost for not letting him in on the ways of the stars. Struggling with this annoyance, Clearpaw's attention was redirected by the scampering paws of two kits coming from the nursery with his friend crawling out behind them.
"Clearpaw! Snowkit has something she'd like to ask you," Nightkit immediately called out, her smiling green eyes calling for his complete attention.
Abandoning his earlier thoughts, Clearpaw's curiosity took more of an interest in what the she-kit had to saw. Her name was given to her because she appeared similar to his dead older sister, the one who gave birth to her being his aunt. So, what did the young one want then? Was she going to ask him something about his apprenticeship or ask him to take them out of camp? He tilted his head quietly to the side, waiting for the request or question she had wanted him to answer.
"Well, uh…" one of her paws was placed on top of the other way, tail shifting nervously, "you speak to the cats of Starclan, right Clearpaw?"
Knowing that she was the kitten who often had a hard time getting things out, Clearpaw did not chastise her for her slowness. "Yes, I do."
Looking up at him with large brown eyes, Snowkit's voice suddenly seemed different, "Snowpaw came to me. She said to tell you something, I… I can't remember it clearly. But… at the Gathering, something… something is going to happen. She—she said so."
Clearpaw's shoulder fur stood on end, surprised by the things that the young she-kit before him was talking about. Snowpaw had entered her dream right after his? Was it that important that she had to get another medium to tell him what was wrong. And the one that she chose did not even remember!
"Are you sure that you don't know anything else? Snowkit?" his eyes narrowed, he was putting pressure on the poor thing. "You don't know anything else?"
"I-I don't, I-I s-swear," she told him, near weeping.
Fawnpaw stared at him, mystified. Her gaze did not shift as she requested that they return to their mother, the once excited Nightkit patiently drawing her sister to her side before they ran back to the warmth of the nursery. Watching them go, Clearpaw's tail twitched, he could feel his muscles tremor. Something was happening at the Gathering. First Juniperfrost speaking of it and now Snowpaw coming to the one who shared her name. Certainly, certainly something was going to happen!
"What did she mean, Clearpaw? The Gathering?" the light brown tabby looked skeptical. "We haven't heard talk of a Gathering since this whole thing started, certainly she was—"
"All cats old enough to catch their own prey, gather here beneath the Smooth Stone!" Pinestar's voice shook them, they turned at the same time with their shoulders brushing. "Tomorrow is the night of the Gathering, we shall be attending…" A rasping cough followed his speech, but he continued on with those who were invited.
Near the side of the Smooth Stone Clearpaw saw his mentor slipping towards their den. She knew something.
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DISCLAIMER ! The WARRIORS series belongs to Erin Hunter (...well, the people who actually make it...). Characters in this story belong to A-B-D.